


Chasing the Dark

by EchoThruTheWoods



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII
Genre: M/M, Self-Harm, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, TW: Blood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-20
Updated: 2019-02-20
Packaged: 2019-11-01 04:29:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17860301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EchoThruTheWoods/pseuds/EchoThruTheWoods
Summary: Time is passing for everyone but Vincent and he’s getting desperate.





	Chasing the Dark

**Author's Note:**

> For the FF7 Rare Pair Week, prompt "Emotions".

It was just another argument, not even a major one. There were no raised voices, no slammed doors. Vincent walked away, out of the house, avoiding the tension and the chill in Veld‘s voice. He came back a few hours later, following the setting sun as it threw long black shadows at his feet.

He found a suitcase on the porch.

He stared at it as though it was some exotic animal, even though part of his brain told him it was his. Picking it up, he fumbled with the catch. Inside was clothing--all his, enough for at least three changes. His fingers lost their grip, and the case fell with a thump in front of the door.

A few moments later, the door opened.

Vincent raised his head, blinking at Veld, who held out his hand--the metal one.

“Key, please.”

His voice still had that edge of command. Vincent dug the key out of his pocket without even thinking, unable to find a word of protest, and stared at it before slowly putting it into Veld’s hand. It clinked, steel against steel.

“Let me know where to send the rest of your stuff.” Veld pocketed the key, all business, all Turk. All stranger, his eyes flat and cold.

Vincent’s mouth opened and closed, once, as though someone else had moved it. Maybe someone had. There were howls and screams inside his head, louder than they’d been for weeks. He couldn’t hear anything outside of them, not even the sound of the door closing softly with Veld on the other side of it.

He left the suitcase. There was nothing he valued in it.

\---

He didn’t remember how he’d gotten to the top of the building. Didn’t remember what building it was, or where. Maybe he’d been here before, back when sitting up high, alone, above the world, made it easier to think. Now he couldn’t remember what, in the past, had seemed so pressing, so profound, that it required solitude and altitude to deal with it.

Now he was just alone, sitting on the roof of a building, at night, in the rain.

He’d have laughed but he couldn’t find the impulse inside of him, couldn’t remember how to move the muscles, how to pull enough oxygen into his lungs to do it. He hadn’t drawn more than a breath or two since he’d left the house.

After all, he was dead. Hollowed out, empty of everything except the muttering and the howling.

There were places he could go, but he had no desire to go there, to talk to people, listen to their sympathy or see them shake their heads and ask, “Well, what did you expect?”

If he was good at anything, he was good at taking the blame. He knew whose fault this was.

He stood, looking down. The ground was a long way away. He wrapped his arms around himself, fingers folded in tight against the impulse to shape-shift at the last moment.

It was one step, wind enfolding him, voices screaming, the ground rushing up, and then black. Pain, sharp, distant. All…black.

\-----

Veld answered the door to a fist that struck him square in the jaw. He stumbled backward, catching himself on the doorframe. A voice struck next, male, familiar, except that it was twisted with rage.

“You fucking prick.”

Veld crossed his arms, resisting the urge to rub his aching jaw. He’d had worse.

“Feel better now?”

Rufus Shinra spat, “What the hell is wrong with you?”

“Once is pushing your luck, boy. You don’t want to know what twice will get you. Now what do you want?”

“Vincent just tried to kill himself.”

Veld sighed. “Which didn’t work.”

“What the hell difference does that make?”

“All the difference in the world, which you’d realize if you used your brain.” 

Veld gave in to the dull pain, wincing as he massaged his jaw. Nothing was broken, which was almost a disappointment. He’d taught this man better than that. 

“I didn’t ask for your advice on my personal affairs.”

“Did you kick him out?”

“No. I simply made it clear that it was time for him to leave. And yes, if you want to get technical.”

“For gods’ sake, why?”

“Because of shit like this, for one thing!”

Patience at an end, Veld pulled Rufus into the hall and slammed the door. He didn’t need the neighbors knowing every detail of his life.

“Because once again, Valentine has made himself the victim. He vanishes for weeks. Doesn’t call, doesn’t answer his phone, doesn’t even write, then walks back in like he owns the world, and is honestly astonished when I don’t fall at his feet in gratitude. Living with him is living with constant uncertainty. What the fuck did I do to deserve this? I can’t deal with it anymore.”

“Did you tell him that?” Rufus asked, very quietly.

“I’ve tried. His mind is like concrete - all mixed up and permanently set.” He looked up, at the ceiling or maybe at the sky beyond, at the gods whose existence he questioned more every day. “What did he do this time?”

“Walked off the top of HQ.”

“Drama queen. How many bones did he break?”

“All the important ones.”

“Figures. Lots of blood, I‘m sure.”

“There was less than you’d think. But still too much.”

Veld shook his head. “Where is he?”

“In the WRO infirmary.”

That was a surprise. It must have showed on Veld’s face.

Rufus went on, “Tseng found him. Said he saw something plummet past his office window, went out to look, and there was Vincent. It…wasn’t pretty.”

“Tseng, huh? You sure Vincent wasn’t pushed off the roof?”

Rufus’s face went pale. Veld sighed. He couldn’t possibly be the only person who knew Tseng was jealous of his old mentor’s attachment to Valentine.

It wasn’t sexual jealousy, of that Veld was fairly certain; Tseng had never shown any interest in him that way. But professional jealousy, oh yes  _ that _ , in spades, with a touch of “daddy always liked you best” for good measure. Valentine had Veld’s attention, ever and always, and Tseng craved it.

Rufus looked totally shaken. “Veld, you don’t think he--”

“Oh, I doubt it. He knows better, for one thing.” 

Tseng wasn’t stupid. He knew he couldn’t kill Valentine that way. Or any other way. He also knew what Veld would do if he found out. Of course, if the object was pain instead of death…

Yeah, maybe he didn’t want to think about that right now.

“Veld, he’s really hurting.”

“Uh huh, well, regeneration can be painful when it’s this extensive.”

“That is  _ not  _ what I meant. Don’t play dumb.”

Veld scowled. “Watch your mouth, boy. I’m not too old to kick your ass.”

Rufus rolled his eyes. “That doesn’t fly anymore. Get over to the infirmary and talk to him.”

“And say what? I’m sorry I threw him out? I’m not sorry.” Oh, he could still lie with the best of them. Or was that the worst of them?

“This is none of your business, I’m done talking about it.”

Rufus sighed, head bowed, and then in the next instant had Veld by the collar, shoved up against the wall so hard he felt the plaster crack behind him.

“Listen to me, Dragoon. I may be a pretty-boy with too much money, but I am not stupid. I’ve seen how this mess has affected operations. You and Valentine get this shit worked out before it destroys the cohesion of the WRO. Or  _ you _ , sir, will not like seeing what’s behind Door Number Two. Got it?”

He let go, leaving Veld with his jaw hanging and his brain blue-screened.

Well, at least the little shit had learned how to use the element of surprise. Dragging him to hand-to-hand combat training hadn’t been a complete waste of time.

\-----

The lights were too bright. They never remembered how sensitive his eyes were now. It made them fill with tears, over and over, running down his temples into his hair, leaving sticky salt trails that stung his healing skin.

Goddamn regeneration.

“You know this is pointless, don’t you?”

Vincent’s breath hitched, hearing that voice. Why did Veld always show up when he was in pieces?

Why couldn’t he ever see that Vincent was  _ always  _ in pieces?

“Fuck off.” At least his voice still worked as well as ever. Which wasn’t saying much.

There was a sigh. A hand touched his, stroked gently down from wrist to fingertips. He couldn’t pull it away; those muscles weren’t responding yet. Tomorrow, he estimated.

“Vincent, talk to me. Why do you keep doing this?” Veld’s voice was soft and even, just like the other night when he’d asked for his key back.

The tears came harder. He blinked and blinked, trying to clear them. Couldn’t glare properly, eyes half-blinded with too much light, too much water, he couldn’t even see clearly, dammit, didn’t Veld realize how much it had hurt, getting thrown out of his home by the man he--

Wait.

“Keep…?” 

That blurry blob bending over him, that was Veld’s face, brows crumpled in a deep frown that tugged at his scar and twisted his mouth. Vincent knew that look. Every sin he’d ever committed was written in it. A touch of heat rose in Vincent’s face, and Veld’s mouth turned just a little up at the corners.

“My lovely idiot, you think I didn’t know what you were doing? Why you disappeared, why it took so long for you to come back?”

He gripped Vincent’s shoulders, fingers of metal and bone digging into the tender, half-healed joints. “Do you honestly think you could hide it from me? And why--why would you even try?”

“Does it matter? You threw me out.”

Veld laid his hand on Vincent’s chest, right where his heartbeat should be, and so rarely was.

“When you left yesterday morning, I thought you’d be gone for weeks. Again. Weeks that I would spend wondering if this time, you’d managed to succeed, somehow, and I would never know. I just wanted you to know how that felt. I guess that makes me a bastard.

“I don’t have the courage to throw myself off of a building or step in front of a train. But I’d have spent the rest of my life wishing that I did.”

Vincent closed his eyes, straining, pulling, willing his muscles to move, just an inch, just a fraction.

His fingers jerked. Veld caught Vincent’s hand in his own.

“You--” Vincent scraped his voice up out of a raw throat. “You have more. Courage. Than I do. So tired, Veld. So scared. When you’re gone…” 

He swallowed tears, breath catching hard in his throat. He couldn’t finish that thought, couldn’t force the words out. He could see them, plain as the lines on Veld’s face, the grey at his temples, the faded amber of his eyes.

“So I thought, if I could…get there first. To the Lifestream. I’d wait for you.”

It wouldn’t be that long. He knew it, and it didn’t take a sixth sense. Veld slept more than he used to, and it took him longer to wake up. He was always cold, and his appetite was less than it’d been just a year ago.

Mortality. A taste of iron on Vincent’s tongue, the smell of dry stone and damp earth. The papery thinness of Veld’s skin, the sharpness of his bones against Vincent’s body.

When Veld was gone, he’d want to die, too. Why not do it now? There had to be a way. He just had to find it.

“We can go together,” he said, the words falling soft as the dusty years. “Into the dark.”

Veld said nothing, but he wasn’t silent. His pulse beat slow and steady, except for the little murmur that whispered underneath the cadence of his heart; his breath sighed like distant surf. Bones clicked when he moved. Vincent heard it all, like he did every night that he lay beside Veld, watching him sleep, watching the remaining days diminish.

There had to be a way. He would find it.

“Finish healing,” Veld said. He squeezed Vincent’s hand, lifted it, laid it on his chest. “I’ll stay right here. We’ll talk about it tomorrow.” 

He smoothed Vincent’s hair, turned the lights down for him, and settled in the visitor‘s chair. Vincent listened to his breathing until it fell into the deep, slow rhythm of sleep.

Making his own heart beat took an effort of will. He had learned, hour by hour, to do it. He did it now, set it like a clock, ticking on endless repeat. It was necessary.

It took him longer to lift his arms. Minutes, hours…he couldn’t tell. First the right arm, then the left, slowly, the brass gauntlet heavy as the weight on his soul. It shook, but he positioned it exactly, precisely, where he needed it.

Brass talons touched his right wrist. He hooked them deep into the skin, and smiled as the warm blood began to flow.

It was worth a try.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> This is not related to the rest of my Vin/Veld stories, consider it an AU if you want.


End file.
